People Behavior Changes in China during COVID-19 Pandemic

  1. Yongzhong Wu
  2. Mianmian Huang
  3. Guie Xie
  4. Xiangying Chen

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Abstract

While most countries implemented measures to reduce people activities and gathering to contain the coronavirus, the outcome may vary significantly depending on how and to what extent people behaviors have been changed. We conducted a survey of 1,048 people in five major cities in China to track and quantify the behavior changes in different periods since the outbreak. It is found that there was nearly 80% reduction of out-of-home activities (working, eating, shopping, taking public transportation, and travelling) during the peak period. Such activities are gradually increasing after the easing of containment measures but still significantly below pre-outbreak level. The significant behavior changes have contributed to the rapid control of virus transmission in China. While countries are reopening the economies before the virus disappears, the system and capacity of testing and contact tracing should be carefully designed with the tracking of people behavior changes in the future.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.05.15.20097667: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

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  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.05.15.20097667v1 on medRxiv